


baby loves to dance in the dark

by Itgoeson



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Communication, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Violence, Mission Fic, Training, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 17:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8675473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itgoeson/pseuds/Itgoeson
Summary: “Believe me, I’ve got better things to look at than Shiro’s eyes when he’s working out,” Lance mutters. Keith doesn’t think he’s supposed to hear it. Featuring: Shiro's eyeliner, Schrodinger's relationship, Keith and Pidge on a mission for Voltron, Hunk and Lance on a mission to figure out Shiro's beauty secrets, and healthy relationships.





	

“It’s definitely eyeliner,” Lance drawls.

“No way,” Hunk shakes his head, hair whipping around his face. Keith thinks, absentmindedly, that it’d be a cute picture, the two of them with their heads tipped together and their shoulders touching, Hunk’s hair layered over Lance’s head from where it had settled. “It’s gotta be Sharpie or something. It never smears — not even when he’s all sweaty.”

“Believe me, I’ve got better things to look at than Shiro’s eyes when he’s working out,” Lance mutters. Keith doesn’t think he’s supposed to hear it. 

Granted, he’s also hiding out behind a pillar and juggling spare parts (and parts to what? He’s not sure, and he’s not asking). Keith stays motionless and silent while the two talk in hushed voices in a dusty part of the castle. He’s definitely not, like, invited to the conversation.

Keith wonders how they manage to save entire planets while keeping so much of themselves tucked away from one another. And he knows he could just tell Lance he’s gay and be done with it, and maybe Lance would stop making jokes about being bi and then acting like he’s not all the time, but. Well. You can be queer and a dick. They’re not mutually exclusive. Keith’s basically the posterboy for “queer and a ginormous dick,” so he doesn’t have much faith that his coming out would actually help anything. Lance would probably put his foot in his mouth and Keith would know it wasn’t ill-meant, but he’d probably only forgive Lance after giving him the broken face of his life. Shiro would feel like he had to come out, because if even Keith felt like being honest, Shiro would feel guilty for lying, and everything would snowball. Shiro doesn’t need to talk about his anything before he’s ready.

He waits until Hunk laughs and claps him on the shoulder. “Buddy, I know. But still. Sharpie. Space Sharpie, maybe? We should ask Allura or Pidge.”

“No way, dude, Coran would know better than those two. Have you seen the way he talks about his mustache? He’s got to wear makeup.”

Keith pushes off from the pillar and silently stalks past them. He makes it three steps in front of them before Lance shrieks and Hunk flails and he’s glad they can’t see his face because he’s definitely wearing a grin that never fails to make Shiro demand he clench his jaw so Shiro can punch him and break something. 

“Wait!” Lance calls.

He takes another dragging step before turning around. The guys have, after all, piloted a giant lion made out of smaller lions with him in some objectively terrifying situations. They deserve at least his attention. He faces them and cocks an eyebrow.

“Shiro’s eyeliner — what’s he use?” Lance asks. Hunk gives him puppy dog eyes.

Keith snorts. “Honestly? No idea.”

He salutes and turns on his heel, disappearing down a hallway neither of them had noticed with his arms full of metal scrap. 

It’s basically Space Sharpie, and Keith is not going to give Lance and Hunk the satisfaction of knowing that.

If Keith catches the words “feral desert child” as he slinks away and grins, well. He can appreciate a good reputation.

|||

Pidge is covered in grease. 

Her hair is tangled, a couple nails are bleeding sluggishly, and she’s grinning brightly enough to generate quintessence out of thin air. 

Keith drops off the parts he’d scrounged up from an old storage room. “This good enough?”

Pidge grins. “That’ll be fine. What took you so long?”

He sighs out through his nose. “Lance and Hunk were gossiping. Got distracted.”

It makes her laugh, and the sound bounces warmly through the hangar. Keith’s missed the clanging echoes of hangars. He never wants to be kicked out of a way to fly again. “Sounds like them,” she says a little wistfully. 

Keith jumps up on an empty section of Pidge’s workstation and sits cross-legged to watch her work. “Yeah. Trying to figure out what Shiro uses for eyeliner.”

She glances up sharply. “I’d wondered. What does he use? And why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does he use eyeliner? We’re in space. And he’s. You know. A guy.”

Keith bites down on a sharp reply. Pidge is like, twelve. He’s not gonna fight a twelve year old. Today, at least. “Because he likes to. It’s stuff you put on your face, it doesn’t change your gender. You put on glasses. That doesn’t make you a guy.”

Pidge frowns and goes back to tapping code into her computer. “That’s not the same thing,” she insists stubbornly.

“You could’ve worn contacts.”

“It’s easier to go to sleep with glasses. And they hide the shape of my face more.”

“And eyeliner makes Shiro’s eyes longer and bigger. You can’t forget he’s not white.” He shrugs. It doesn’t feel like he’s giving too much away. This is a truth, even if it’s not the whole truth. Before Kerberos, it had been one of the things Shiro loved most about eyeliner when he’d worn it.

Pidge, though, freezes. “Huh?”

Keith waits for her to process. He doesn’t really know which part she doesn’t understand and, smart as she is, it’s dangerous to patronize her, even unintentionally.

“Why would he want that?” Pidge finally says. She reaches over to start arranging the parts Keith had brought her. 

“Because he’s not white? It makes him feel more in control. White people are shit sometimes.”

Pidge finally looks at him and blinks, slowly. "So he wants to own who he is. When did this start?"

All this sharing is starting to wear at Keith. Usually, he can come hang out with Pidge in silence. Explaining is tiring work, and painful besides. They’ll never be the people they were on Earth again.

“He’s from Japan. He moved to the States when he was young.”

Pidge continues to blink at him. “And you’re from?”

“Kansas,” he says flatly. Pidge cracks a grin. 

“My family’s from South Korea though. I can speak a little Korean still. A little Japanese, too.”

Pidge’s eyes light up. “Teach me sometime,” she demands. 

He nods amicably. “Yeah, sure.”

They go back to sitting in silence for a while. It’s nice, energy humming under his skin dulled by the wide open space and Pidge’s frequent requests for him to hold or steady heavy parts. It lasts until dinner, when they head up to the kitchens.

It’s a short walk, and Pidge is thoroughly engrossed by her computer. Keith feels like his skin is tight somehow. He shrugs it off as defensiveness over Shiro and the lack of a solid workout during the day and resolves to ask Shiro to spar with him after dinner.

Shiro’s not at dinner, though. He’s not there to hear Lance burp loudly, or see Allura dissolve into laughter at Hunk’s mocking impersonation of Lance that follows shortly after. And Keith figures that maybe everyone’s been talking about Shiro all day because something is wrong. After all, it’d make as much sense as anything these days. They halfway share a brain when they’re Voltron. Maybe there’s residual overlap.

When Allura brings up his absence, though, Keith shrugs along with the rest of them. 

“Maybe he just got caught up in a practice match against your droid. You know how he gets,” Keith says. Lance cracks a joke that Coran quickly joins in on. Allura presses her lips together but lets it go. 

She might just be the best being in the entire galaxy.

He begs off of dish duty. It’s Lance’s turn anyway, and they all know if Lance is doing dishes, Hunk will at least stay to dry. He slips away while Pidge grills Coran and Allura about Altean customs. They’re all engrossed, nodding and arguing the way he imagines a family should. It’s picturesque, somehow, and digs under Keith’s skin. 

He used to want something like this. Now, Keith just wants to feel safe and to get Shiro back.

|||

The training room is empty. His footsteps are silent and his breathing is soft and Keith feels like he’s being scraped away by a melon-baller. 

“When’s the last time Shiro was here?”

“2.67 Altean cycles ago. Approximately 34 hours in Earth time,” the AI intones. 

Keith pretends it doesn’t creep him out a little bit, says “thanks,” waves, and quick steps out of there. He’d almost known Shiro was in his room, but he’d been hoping he was wrong. Nothing good is going to be behind Shiro’s door.

It’s been months out here in space and, while they’re been close, they aren’t as close as they used to be. They sleep in the same bed more often than not, or end up that way from nightmares. They train together constantly, share long looks or quick peeks. But they’ve lost a bit of the easiness between them while Shiro was off far, far away being torn apart.

He knocks and, when there’s no reply, keys in the code.

The door swooshes open. It’s dark, faint yellow light seeping in from the hallway. Keith remembers staying up late one night at the Garrison, Shiro listening with a grin as Keith animatedly explained the concept of a liminal space. This feels like that, like reality is just a bit offset from what it should be. 

“Shiro?”

There’s a heavy exhale from deeper in the room. Keith follows the sound to find Shiro leaned against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest. He’s staring blankly at the side of his bed, and he’s in loose sweats and a long-sleeved shirt, sleeves pulled over his hands, palms curled over his ankles. 

The sight makes Keith ache.

“Hey,” he says, sliding down to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Shiro. “Missed a pretty bad dinner. Don’t think you missed out on much.”

That’s halfway to a lie. Dinner was fine, and the company was better. But Shiro looks sad and lost, eyes droopy in the way they only get when Shiro’s cried recently, so Keith disregards the need for truth.

“You know,” he continues, because he doesn’t often feel the need to chatter, so he pays attention when his gut tells him to talk. “Everyone was commenting on your eyeliner today. Don’t know what brought it up.” He pauses. “I think they like it.”

Shiro tips his head towards him and grins faintly. “Yeah?”

His voice is a little ragged, not as firm as usual. Keith likes it any way it sounds. “Yeah. Hunk thinks it’s Sharpie.”

“No Sharpies in space,” Shiro rasps out.

“You’re telling me. Not much coffee, either.”

Shiro closes his eyes and lets his head fall on Keith’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Keith. I shouldn’t -”

“If you’re going to tell me,” Keith warns him sharply, “that you’re sorry for being friends with me, just know that I know how to fight dirty. I can absolutely knock you out and shove you into an escape pod with coordinates for the ass-end of the next galaxy if you do that.”

Shiro snorts. “You’d love that.”

It sounds sort of hollow, the way he says it. Keith reaches up to run a hand through Shiro’s hair. “I’d hate it and you know it. You’re my family.”

That makes Shiro pause. Pulls him back from his listlessness a little bit. Keith feels him tense slightly, and it’s less tension than it is his body pulling back from that empty slackness. “I’m sorry, Keith. I don’t think I’ve ever been good for you.”

“Shut up, Shiro. We balance each other.”

“Yeah, and what’re you bringing to the table?” he teases.

Keith grins. “My all-consuming lust for you and the ability to take my head out of my ass. Unlike some people here.”

A pause, just slightly off-kilter for their easy give and take. “At least one of those was true,” Shiro agrees cheekily. 

His response unwinds something in Keith. If he’s joking, then at least he’s doing better than he has been all day. “Damn straight.” Shiro finally uncurls a hand to slap Keith’s thigh half-heartedly. “So what’ve you been up to all day, Oh Captain My Captain?”

“Sitting here, mostly.”

“I gathered,” Keith shoots back. He doesn’t want to let this go. Wants to know every part of Shiro, not just the easy bits.

“Thinking about eyeliner,” Shiro says wryly.

“Well, I guess that makes the whole ship, then.”

They sit in silence, for a bit, before Shiro says, softly, “Do you remember when I started wearing it?”

Does he. Shiro had been. Off, for a while. Had made a couple offhand remarks when they were kids. Had mentioned something here and there when he’d talked to Keith while they were separated, before Keith could follow him to the Garrison. Nothing serious or outright, but enough that Keith got the impression that Shiro was uncomfortable in his skin. Wanted to be — Keith hesitated to call it “pretty,” but that was the only word that really came to mind.

One day, they’d gone shopping. He can’t remember why, now, only that Shiro had been distracted when they’d walked past the women’s section. Keith had grabbed his arm, so careful in public and careless in private, and dragged him deeper. 

A sales associate had drawn close, picking up on Keith’s determination and Shiro’s helplessness, probably, and asked if they needed help. 

“Yes, please,” Keith had grinned ruefully. “It’s my sister’s birthday soon, and she’s always going on about how we never get her stuff she can use. I dragged him along,” he says, pointing to Shiro, “because they’re about the same size. But I never know what to look for.” He’d looked at her hopefully, and she’d pointed out several shirts that were flowy enough that they wouldn’t need to be tried on.

Shiro had blushed crimson the instant they were back on base and alone in his room, running his hands over the shirts, then covering his face, then smoothing back over the fabric. “We shouldn’t have -” he started, and Keith smacked the side of his head.

“No one has to know if you don’t want them to,” he’d said. And that was the beginning of wherever Shiro was now. The excuse worked well, and Keith used it well and often. The makeup had been another step, Keith explaining to another associate that his sister had asked him to pick up this or that, and she was Shiro’s skin tone almost exactly, and could they help?

“Of course I remember,” Keith says, tilting his head down to rest against Shiro’s. 

“I miss my clothes,” he whispers. 

“Do you,” Keith starts. He’s not sure if Shiro wants to have this conversation, but he still thinks it’s one they should have. “Do you ever want — surgery? To. Change genders or anything. Physically.”

“I don’t want anyone ever changing a goddamned thing about my body ever again,” Shiro whispers. His voice is almost violently controlled, and Keith struggles not to shiver with it. “I don’t want anyone to touch me.”

Keith runs a hand though Shiro’s hair, scratches at his scalp. “Yeah. That makes sense, Takashi.”

He’s hoping using Shiro’s name will ground him, bring him back a little. Shiro doesn’t usually talk like this, angry and open and bleeding off his emotion, but. Well. They do tend to rub off on one another when they’re not paying attention. When it’s just the two of them, it feels like they’re meeting in the middle; Keith stretching out and up to give Shiro something to lean against and on, Shiro twisting himself into someone who can talk about his emotions and let himself feel what he pushes to the side in front of everyone. 

“I’m sorry,” Shiro says again, deflating a little bit.

Keith flicks him on the ear before going back to rubbing at his scalp. “I’m just curious, do you have x-ray vision now too? Because I don’t know how else you’d see past your colon with your head so far up your ass.”

Shiro snickers. “Galra tech. I actually see through my arm.”

Keith turns his face towards Shiro, and Shiro follows suit. He slides his nose along Shiro’s. “Get up and work out with me, yeah? Been too long since either of us sparred, and it’s as good as anything to ease the sexual tension here.”

Shiro groans. “Keith.”

“I know, I know.” They’re quiet for a moment. “You know,” he says into the silence. “I get why you didn’t want us to start this, before Kerberos. Six years was a lot more of a big deal when you were eighteen, or twenty, or even twenty-three. But I also know that I’ve pretty much been it for you since you were twelve and I was a seven-year-old trying to build a lego plane and you thought that my design was cooler than the one you were trying to make. Whether or not it was ever a romantic thing or a friend thing. I know we would’ve burned each other fast when we were still on Earth. And I know that we’re both different people know. But I also think we’re better for each other. And,” he continues, biting his lip and nudging Shiro’s nose with his own again, “I know you’re a virgin who moans my name when you jerk off. So you just let me know when we’re doing this.”

Shiro lets out a squeak. “I do not-”

“Do too, and I don’t know when it started, but I know you still did it last week.”

Keith deeply regrets being unable to see Shiro’s face. It’s got to be painfully red by now. 

“Either way,” Shiro grumbles. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“I know, doofus. We’re both trying to make this work. You’re not the only one making sure we don’t fuck up.”

Shiro leans his face closer so that Keith can feel his smile against his cheek. “I know. I’m just trying to work some things out before we get there.”

“Take your time. It’s really just the sex I’m waiting on here. We already basically share a room, the amount of time we sleep in each others’ beds.”

“So much confidence in one so young,” Shiro intones despairingly. “Where does it go?”

“Laugh it up, Golden Boy,” Keith tells him, shoving him off and standing up. “We’ll see who wins on the mat.” 

He offers Shiro a hand up, and Shiro tackles him instead, jumping up and making for the door. “Last one there has to clean up afterward,” he calls, already out the door. 

“That’s not fair!” Keith yelps. “You sweat, like, a ridiculous amount! Shiro!” he yells, chasing after him. 

Shiro’s laughter floats back to him, and Keith decides that, if he can’t beat Shiro to the gym, he’ll at least give as good as he gets and kick Shiro’s ass a couple times.

Besides, at least he got Shiro up and out of his funk. 

|||

Shiro thoroughly kicks his ass. Keith isn’t even mad. He’s a little turned on, but nowhere near mad. Shiro hasn’t let go like that since before Kerberos. When he’d slammed Keith to the mat and pinned him with a knee to the chest, they’d both grinned breathlessly.

The bruises feel like healing. 

The spatter of blood on the floor where Keith had opened up a gash on Shiro’s cheek is cathartic. 

Shiro doesn’t seem angry, either, just whole. Glowing.

Maybe that last part is just sweat, though. 

Finally, he flips on a hold, catching Shiro by the neck and locking in, wrestling him to the mat in a messy grapple and nearly choking him. When he’s pinned without any chance of getting out of it (without setting his robot arm to “melt Keith” mode), Shiro takes a deep breath and smiles up at Keith.

“Not bad, huh old man?” Keith teases, leaning in close.

The lighter flecks in Shiro’s eyes are brilliant from this close up. He’s got tiny freckles that are mostly lost under the weight of his scar. Keith thinks about finally just kissing Shiro and being done with it all. Doesn’t because Shiro had asked. 

“You know,” Shiro tells him. He’s relaxed onto the mat. “I don’t mean to make you chase me so much. You do know that, right?”

Keith laughs. “Shiro, you love me exactly as much as I love you, even when I forget it. I don’t think you’re making me chase you.”

Shiro smiles up at him, and it’s a grossly open look. He looks so in love with Keith. 

“Your face is gonna get stuck that way,” he warns.

He gets a snort in reply, so Keith picks at him again. “You’re getting awfully comfy down there, Shiro. Getting used to me winning every now and then?”

“I like being under you.” Shiro turns scarlet, but his voice had stayed steady, and he doesn’t look away. 

Keith chokes and wobbles. Shiro takes full advantage and flips them, pressing their bodies together onto the mat and dropping to dead weight. Any air left in Keith explodes out of him. 

“I can feel your dad’s disappointment in you from here, you filthy cheater,” Keith gasps out.

“Funny, I don’t even notice it anymore.” Shiro winks, and just like that they’re laughing again, Shiro shifting so he’s halfway resting beside Keith, half on top of him, head in the crook of Keith’s shoulder. They’re so warm, throwing off so much heat, Keith feels like all of his muscles are melting into goo. 

It’s fantastic. He’s missed this. 

They’re quiet, settling into one another, until Keith wraps an arm around Shiro and asks, “So why’d you start wearing eyeliner again?”

“It feels like I’m a little like my old self again. In control.”

“In front of everyone, though?”

“Especially in front of everyone.” Shiro props himself up on his arms to look Keith in the eye. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than when I was with you, wearing makeup, looking exactly the way I wanted.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re a good team. We. You make me better.”

Keith knocks his elbow into Shiro’s so that Shiro loses his balance. It’s worth getting an extra bruise on his collarbone from Shiro’s chin. “I make you comfortable. You don’t need to be better. You need to change some things, maybe, but you’re always perfect, no matter who you are.”

And, because Keith’s life is exponentially strange, Shiro curls his fingers into Keith’s sweat-damp tank, hides his face in his shoulder, and — there’s definitely wetness trailing over Keith’s shoulder. He’s trying not to panic. What does one do with a large, crying man you’re in love with?

So he holds Shiro and whispers “it’ll be okay, you’re alright, we’ll be okay,” over and over again. He doesn’t know if it helps, but it’s better than feeling helpless.

Finally, Shiro sniffs and wipes at his face. It’s stupidly endearing. He pushes them onto their sides so that he’s facing Shiro with their knees knocked together and noses almost touching. 

“Alright?”

“Almost.” 

Shiro leans in slowly, gaze flicking between his lips and his eyes, giving him eons to change his mind. Keith, instead, waits for Shiro to come to him.

He’s might have been chasing Shiro for years, but Shiro’s always been the one to make sure Keith can keep up. 

It’s a soft, dry kiss, slow and steady and firm. Then Keith decides that that’s very nice, it’s a very Officer Shirogane Takashi of the Galaxy Garrison kiss. But they’ve always been the kids who chased storms and played too rough and pushed a little too hard, tumbled in sand and came home with blood-stained jeans and sprained wrists. 

He shoves Shiro over onto his back and straddles him, grabs Shiro’s shoulders for balance — mindful of giving Shiro an easy way to get out, to throw Keith off and run if he needs to. Keith is a firm believer in giving Shiro clean exit lines, these days. And, that done, leans in to turn the kiss as filthy as he knows how.

It takes a couple starts and stops, and they end up snickering and pinching each other in the sides, but the kiss levels off into something they can both learn.

Shiro laughs when they pull apart with a slick pop. 

“Putting us together in space was a bad idea.”

Keith snorts. “I would’ve done worse than Zarkon if the universe thought it could pull us apart and I knew you were alive.”

“You found me when you thought I was dead,” Shiro mumbles, a little awed. “I believe you.”

“Damn straight,” Keith tells him and pulls him in for another kiss.

|||

The alarms blare that night.

They’re in Keith’s room, because it’s closer to the Lions. Allura had assigned them all rooms and while the gesture was nice, it made Shiro itchy, sometimes. Keith had the better exit. Shiro’s room is closer to the bridge. There’s no perfect solution. 

It’s worse when Shiro is tired, before the nightmares suck it out of him. When Keith is grouchy from a long day. They both try to sleep in beds. 

But Shiro spent a year in gladiator fights and metal prison cells and metal examination tables, and Keith spent that time kicking back and driving himself paranoid in the desert, sleeping in his shack, or on his roof, or, a couple times, on a pile of rocks by accident. The bed thing works better in theory for them, no matter how hard they try.

It’s possible that, with how little sleep they get anyway, they don’t try very hard to be picky about where they sleep, so much as they fight to get any sleep at all. 

Which is why they’re curled up on the small couch when the ship whirs into battle mode. The lights turn red, a thrumming beat takes over the castle, and Shiro springs into a crouch. His arm is glowing purple, cutting dangerous lines into his face. The lights throw sharp relief on the scars tracing their way over his face and chest.

Keith knocks his elbow on a side table and swears enough to make Shiro blink and look over at him.

It’s the last easy breath either of them has for days. Keith thinks of that while he’s hiding out from a local patrol, fauna piled high over him and trying to keep his breathing slow and quiet. There’s a gash in his side and all he can think about is the way Shiro had snorted and that he’s never going to get to hear that ugly laugh ever again if these people can smell blood or something.

Pidge and Keith had broken off with their Lions before the bulk of the fighting had started. Shiro, Hunk, and Lance had stayed in the skies, ready to dogfight with any Galran ships that entered atmosphere. This planet had been sustaining heavy fire for days. Keith doesn’t want to begin to think about the logistics of waiting out an airborne siege. He’s pretty sure Pidge will talk about the tactics involved the instant they’re alone, anyway. 

Their job had been to rendezvous with the local fighters, get the lay of the land, and offer their assistance. Instead, it looked like a small rebel group had broken off from the main force of Galran allies. The entire planet was a training base for Galran soldiers. The rebels had made their escape on fighter ships shortly after Keith and Pidge had landed. In the chaos, the two had managed to sneak into the control center and poke their way into the local files. Getting out had been trickier. Allura, minutes before their comms went down, had warned them to stay low and wait for backup. She and Coran were working on finding out why they hadn’t been able to tell that this was a Galran-held planet, and on an escape route. The Castle was in orbit of a small moon, cloaked mostly in its shadow with a bit of fancy flying on Allura’s part.

For now, he’s got one arm slung over her shoulder and another bracing his ribs. There’s a nasty spider-looking insect crawling their way. Mentally, he starts going over his last sparring match with Shiro. Surely, if Keith could beat Shiro, and Shiro could win gladiator fights, then Keith can make it off of this hellscape planet with Pidge safely in tow. 

Next to him, Pidge’s eyes are closed. He halfway expects her to let out a snore, she’s so still and quiet. 

Finally, there are heavy footsteps and light, susurrus voices catching the wind before fading into the distance. Keith counts to thirty, then creeps his way out from under the bushes, scaring the alien spider into running up the nearest tree. 

There’s a light misting of what would probably be water if they weren’t light-years away from Earth. As it stands, the drops are faintly purple and break into smaller drops every time they hit something, leaving a smattering of increasingly-fine violet pinpricks of color coating everything in sight. Pidge grunts as she levers her way out from under the bushes and rolls her shoulders. 

“Right,” she says, squinting around them and taking off her glasses. “We need to get back to the Lions. I don’t think the locals want us around here. 

He snorts. “Thank you, Pidge. And where should we —”

There’s a snap of a twig, and Keith throws himself on top of Pidge, who goes down with a grunt. 

Lasers fire above them, boots trampling through the forest and bodies careening through the low-hanging vegetation. 

Keith thinks fondly of warm blankets and the sound of Shiro’s breathing.

Then, he rolls them behind what looks mostly like a tree and snaps out his bayard, nodding in approval as Pidge does the same. He tenses and waits for the soldiers to approach them. It takes three shallow breaths before he and Pidge whip their heads around to blink at each other, realizing at the same time that none of the shots are aimed towards them.

There’s panicked shouting, and something that sounds like orders, but no one seems to be slowing down, only thudding to the ground with wet noises and groans of pain. Another scream, and Pidge ducks out from behind the tree and takes aim. She stays low as she takes down two guards. There’s spinning, and Keith jumps a four-armed being with his bayard through the back. A few yards away, the raindrops seem to glow and shiver as Shiro’s arm slices, neon purple shining through the slick pastel drops. Two more soldiers fall.

Shiro stands, panting, eyes slitted nearly shut. His knees are bent and arms extended slightly. It’s his game stance. New, something he picked up after his Garrison days. Keith’s learned to back the fuck away and tap out when Shiro’s tensed like this. Even if he’s not going in for the kill, Shiro’s too aware of his own body and surroundings like this to lose a fight. 

So Keith watches with a fuzzy sense of satisfaction as Shiro strikes seemingly at random, a knife he’d picked up from a fallen soldier whizzing out of his hand and into the last soldier. The only sign that it’s hit its mark is the body falling nearly silently out of the short tree to Keith’s right. He thinks it’s sort of poetic.

He might be a little woozy from blood loss. 

Pidge wedges her shoulder under his arm and waves her free hand frantically. “Shiro,” she whisper-shouts. Keith thanks his lucky stars for Pidge, who is always so smart. “Shiro, over here.”

He jogs over immediately. “Injuries?”

“Keith’s side is a little torn up, and I’m pretty sure I tore a ligament or pulled a muscle or something. Nothing we can’t fix in the Castle.”

He nods. “Lions flew up to rejoin the Castle yesterday. I came down to find you two. Black’s in low orbit. She’s coming in now.”

Something about the way Shiro’s still not touching him, still tense and coiled, is bothering Keith. And he knows they're in enemy territory. He does, believe it or not, know he’s in at least a little bit of danger, real danger, if he can’t get his side to stop bleeding soon. But there’s a nagging feeling, still. 

“Why’re you here?”

Smooth. But it’s a good question, and Keith thinks it’s what’s bothering him. There’s no real reason for Shiro to be risking his life chasing squads of Galran trainees through a foreign forest. It’s dangerous and Shiro should be in Black right now.

“We needed to find you guys, and all your systems are down. Must have shorted out when you snuck into their base,” here, Shiro levels both of them with an unimpressed look, “to copy and wipe their drives.”

Pidge shrugs, and it jostles Keith enough to jolt him a bit. He needs to stay alert. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained?” she hazards.

Shiro throws her a lopsided grin and scans the sky. 

“No, but, why is it you and not Lance or Hunk? Don’t you need to coordinate or something?” Don’t you need to live goes unsaid. Who would lead Voltron without him? Allura could, but she’s infinitely better at long-range tactics. 

There’s a drawn kind of silence that makes Keith regret asking, just a little bit.

“I’m the best at tracking things,” is all Shiro says.

The best at killing, is what he doesn’t say. Keith is glad he doesn’t. 

Above them, crashes sound in quick succession. The three of them look up in unison to see Black nose-diving toward their coordinates. Blue and Yellow are circling, Yellow with a ship clutched in their jaws, Lance directing heavy firepower at three more ships and Hunk circles back to crash his Lion sidelong into a line of fighter jets. 

The trees rustle to their left, nearly covered by the sound of the firefight overhead. 

“Pidge, you and Keith need to get on Black the instant she lands. If you can, cover me with your bayard until I can get on.”

She nods. 

Keith loves her for the way she doesn’t even take the time to be nervous, just squares her shoulders and adjusts her grip on the gun.

Everything blurs a little after that.

It starts raining plane parts. Engines and fuselage and a couple mangled bodies thump around them as the fighting tumbles thousands of feet above them. Black crashes into a crouch a couple yards away from them, and Pidge tugs at Keith, the two of them stumbling and running into her waiting jaws. Pidge shoulders at him until Keith nods and jogs his way to the cockpit. He ducks past the heavy artillery that lines Black’s throat and takes over her controls. From the viewscreen, he can see small shots from Black’s mouth, Pidge trying her best to aim at Galran soldiers while avoiding Shiro, who’s splattered in three different colors of blood and backing his way slowly towards the Lion even as he takes down two more soldiers. 

Finally, Pidge gets in a clean shot. One of the last two soldiers goes down and Shiro reaches forward to snap the neck of the last, distracted Galran before sprinting back towards the ship. 

Keith thrusts the Lion into a jump before Shiro and Pidge have enough time to get to the cockpit, but there’s two more squadrons of fighters converging on their location. Distantly, he hears Shiro reporting their movements over the Lion’s relay system, linked in with everyone else. He shoots two more fighters out of the sky.

Lance and Hunk give audible sighs of relief and start to draw back. Together, they beat a hasty retreat to the Castle of Lions, Hunk hanging back to absorb the worst of the fire from the trailing enemy planes and swiping at them when they get close enough.

Ten minutes into their retreat finds Shiro carrying Pidge into the cockpit. 

Keith isn’t even surprised when Shiro suddenly speaks. He’s in the zone. He’s more himself when flying than he could ever be anywhere else. He’s pretty disoriented from shock and the gash in his side. Nothing can faze him.

“Careful next time. Pidge went flying, hit her head on some pipes.”

Keith hums.

“Need me to fly you in?” Shiro asks, strapping Pidge into one of the jump seats.

He shakes his head. It’s a mistake, and he starts to see double.

“Actually, yeah, would you mind?”

Shiro comes up behind him and rests a hand on his shoulder. “Wouldn’t have offered otherwise, Keith. We’ll get you back in one piece, now.”

“That’s nice,” Keith murmurs. He makes it to a mostly standing position before he passes out.

|||

There’s a furious clacking echoing down the hall. It lacks all grace and rhythm. 

Keith has the sneaking suspicion that he knows what it is. And it’s not just the pounding headache he’s had since crawling out of the healing pod and trying to stretch the stiffness out of his joints, wincing at the tender skin that twinged with every shift in muscle. 

It was a good ache, mostly, so he’d ignored it in favor of finding the rest of his team.

They’re crowded in the doorway to the training deck. Lance has a hand on Pidge’s shoulder, Hunk is hovering just behind them, and Coran’s twirling his moustache absentmindedly and squinting at the source of the nearly deafening noise and mouthing something to himself. Keith guesses they’re moves by the way his eyebrows shoot up now and then and his shoulders twitch at particularly loud sounds, like he’s thinking through the motions. 

Hunk turns to Keith when he approaches and slings his arms around him. “Keith, buddy, glad to see you up and around! How’re you feeling?”

He blushes a little, still surprised by how tactile Hunk can be, and returns the embrace. “Good. A little sore, but nothing that won’t be gone in a day or two.”

That catches the others’ attention, and they all turn to crowd around. Pidge slaps him lightly on the arm and grins. It’s heartfelt in the way Pidge almost never is, so Keith takes it for what it’s worth and slaps her on the bicep in return. Coran, excited to learn a new Earth custom, mimics the gesture with too much force. The sound mixes with a sharp metal screech and a grunt of exertion. Lance raises his eyebrow and smirks.

“Glad you’re out of the egg but listen bro. You need to do something about Shiro. Allura’s still navigating, but even she’s starting to get worried.”

He nods and finally focuses on what’s happening at the center of the floor.

Shiro’s fighting the training bot at dizzying speed. When the two back off and circle each other for a moment, Keith can pick out the details. Shiro’s panting, Galran arm pulsing a soft purple in slow beats. His hair is slicked back with sweat, fringe combed back, temples and neck glistening. The bot has several dents, a wire poking out of its side, and scuff marks along its left leg. 

They blur again, the bot darting in and Shiro sidestepping, then thrusting as the bot parries, stepping in as the bot steps back, getting in close to compensate for the bot’s longer reach. 

Next to Keith, Pidge and Hunk are watching with tense shoulders and furrowed brows. Coran is reabsorbed in the fight. Lance looks distinctly unimpressed, like he thinks Shiro’s throwing a fit. Maybe he is, but Keith isn’t going to let him be judged for it.

“Stop playing around, Shiro,” Keith calls. Immediately, everyone around him — Lance included, Keith notes with satisfaction — freeze. 

Sometimes, he thinks they’ve all forgotten that Shiro was a gladiator and a Garrison Officer. Shiro’s always been tactical and tactile. He can kick anyone’s ass in ten moves or less when he really tries.

A thud as Shiro nearly gets thrown into the wall, instead rolling under a massive punch and popping into a defensive crouch. “I mean it, you’re worrying the kids.” More softly, in Japanese so that the others won’t understand, he adds, “I want you, Takashi. You can’t beat yourself up for the stupid mistakes Green and I made.” He doesn’t use Pidge’s name to avoid her glare if she thought they were talking about her. “So stop working yourself to death and come talk to me. I want to curl up in bed for a year.”

Shiro doesn’t look at Keith, but he nods slightly and redistributes his weight, settling into himself.

Coran glances over. “My translator didn’t pick that bit up. What was that?”

They avoid using Japanese in front of Allura and Coran for the express purpose of not giving their translators enough data to pick apart the language. He shrugs. “It’s Japanese.”

A few yards away, Shiro rolls up from under a swing from the battle bot, blocks a cross-body swipe, digs a foot into the groove of its knee when it goes in for a kick, and holds its neck with his human hand. The prosthetic hand fists and there’s a horrifying sizzling as it superheats and weakens the metal enough that his undercut ripples the plating on its stomach, disabling it.

“We grew up speaking it,” Keith finishes into the resulting silence. “It’s a nostalgia thing,” he says, because mentioning home is the easiest way to get everyone on this ship to leave you alone and drop a conversation. 

Shiro stands over the bot and runs a hand through his dripping hair, shaking it off when it comes away wet. He grimaces. “Uh, hey guys. Sorry for the,” he gestures to the floor. “Damage.”

“No, dude, it’s no problem, you just demolished a training bot that kicks my ass on the lowest setting.” Lance waves a hand in the air, but he’s grinning and delighted. 

“I’ve got — a thing,” Pidge mumbles and retreats into the dusty hallways of the Castle. 

Keith knows things are sometimes strained between Shiro and Pidge. He’s secretly a little relieved, though. When things aren’t tense, the two get on like a house on fire. One time, he’d found them messing with the gravity sensors and other controls just to fuck with the plants they’d picked up on three different planets. Shiro’d been calling to her to write it down for science, and Keith had watched, enraptured, as they both giggled and flipped more switches. 

And that would have been nice if they hadn’t nearly exploded the lab by the end of that experiment.

(He suspects it’s still ongoing, and that they’ve just modified their procedure, but he’s a little afraid to ask.)

So Keith catches her eye and waves as she turns to go, and that’s good enough for today. He wasn’t kidding about needing a nap. 

Hunk tosses Shiro a towel to dry off with.

“Where’d you learn those moves?” Coran asks.

Shiro glances at Keith and grins ruefully. “Humans can get pretty scrappy,” he says. “Most of them I learned on Earth, and just modified later.”

Coran nods. “They didn’t look Galran, for the most part. I’d say one or two are from Second Quadrant, on the far side of this galaxy, actually, if I didn’t know better.”

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”

A lie, but Keith won’t call him on it.

Silence stretches out, all of them unwilling to push it, push each other. Coran makes a half-bow and ducks out of the room. 

“Your eyeliner still looks nice,” Hunk observes. His words are sucked up by the vacuum of the room, oddness and wrongness lying between all of them enough that Keith isn’t sure that the words were even real, until Shiro’s mouth twitches.

“Thanks, Hunk.”

“What do you use, man?” Lance chimes in.

Shiro takes his time meeting both of their eyes before looking at Keith. There’s a glint in his eyes that makes his chest feel tight with giddiness. He hasn’t seen it in so long. 

“Space Sharpie.”

Silence. 

Then, a sound like a cat being dragged by its tail, and it’s Hunk and Lance, curled over with laughter, Hunk with an arm around Lance’s middle to keep them both mostly standing.

Keith grins and tips his head to the door. When Shiro nods, Keith backs quietly out of the gym and pads softly to Shiro’s room, which is closer. (If it’s also soothing because it’s Shiro’s, because it smells like him, well. Paladins aren’t sworn to tell the truth.)

It’s dark, track lighting turning the room a hollow and gutted green. He wonders which wires Shiro had to fuck with to turn the colors — it was an unpleasant surprise to find out that most things in space seem to glow Galra-purple, including large swathes of the Castle. Keith crawls into Shiro’s bed and waits under the covers. Space is so cold. It’s easy to forget what it feels like to be over-warm and sun-lazy. He drifts off thinking about summers at home, about laying on tile to try to get cool and laughing when Shiro would get sick with mild dehydration from staying outside all day.

He wakes up to the feel of someone curling up on his chest.

“Hmmm?” he grumbles, arms tightening around the figure.

It’s Shiro, head on his chest and hands running slow lines up and down Keith’s torso. “It’s me,” he whispers. “Just me.”

“Good. Sleep?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to tell you. I’m done. Sorting it all out.”

Keith shifts, folding his arms over Shiro and hugging him to his chest. “What’s. Where’re you at with all this, then?”

Shiro presses a kiss to his neck and rubs his cheek against Keith’s chest. His hair tickles his jaw, his cheeks catching a little on Keith’s shirt from a day’s worth of stubble. It’s adorable. Keith’s half-convinced there are hearts in his eyes. “That I’m done waiting, with sorting myself out. We’ve always done that together — figured things out. We can figure this out together, too.” Silence unspools gently. He feels Shiro’s mouth working, jaw tensing, struggling with what comes next. He gives him time. 

Finally, he continues. “You’re right. About everything. But mostly about making me comfortable. And I hope I make you comfortable, too. I know I’m not the same, now. But I hope I can be home for you, until we make it back to the real thing. After that, too, if you’ll have me. We can figure out the rest on the way.”

“But you wanna DTR?” Keith asks, smiling at Shiro’s huff of breath that smooths down his collarbone. He doesn’t know how to not be a little shit around Shiro, sometimes.

“I want to marry you, Keith.” He lets that hang for a second, talking just as Keith gets his mouth to start making the hint of a sound. “Someday. Until then, I’m with you. In any way you want me.”

“Even the bad parts?”

“Even the bad parts of me, yeah. They’re yours too. The endless training, and my parents, and the crossdressing and —”

His voice cuts off as Keith smacks him on the head. “Don’t be an idiot. You look lovely in all your clothes, and all your makeup. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing if it’s just clothes and makeup. It’s not a bad thing if it means you’re not always a guy, too. Your parents, on the other hand.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, and Shiro giggles. 

Honest to goodness giggles. 

It’s far too much for Keith, who buries his hands in Shiro’s hair and wraps his legs around his waist, pulling him in for a full-body hug.

“You giant nerd, Shirogane.” Shiro squirms, but Keith’s pretty sure it’s mostly in delight, so he gives a hard squeeze and keeps going. “I love you. Of course I’m here for you, for better or for worse. For your parents and your perfectionism and how you always forget that you’ve got emotions that work like everyone else’s.”

Shiro hums. “Thank you. Now go to sleep. You almost died on me, and you need rest.”

“This isn’t just because I almost died, though, right?”

“It helped. But you know it’s all been true for a long time.”

“I do,” Keith mutters. “And you’ve got to be tired, too, kicking that droid’s ass.”

“Mmhmm. Glad you liked the show,” Shiro whispers.

“You don’t scare me in the ring,” Keith tells him, letting his eyes slip closed. “I’ve seen you before you put on makeup. Now that is truly scary.” He fake-shivers, and Shiro flicks his cheek.

“Dumbass.”

“The dumbass you love.”

“That too, Keith. Definitely that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lady Gaga's song because it's oddly fitting.


End file.
